Children stars' beneficiaries of Telethon

Press, 2 July 1979, Page 1

Children stars' beneficiaries of Telethon

Amid the. organised chaos and cheerful confusion of th i closing moments of Telethon yesterday the most notable presence was that of children. Fittingly, in the International Year of the Child, Telethon 1979 was a children’s Telethon: by and for children. Of the hundreds of fund-raising activities, not the highly organised, bigmo n e y-making events stood out. Rather it was the many children who had spontaneously gone out and held a stall or organised a group “some-thing-or-other-athon” and personally brought in their dollars and cents to help other children more in need than themselves.

They were the stars of Telethon: they were the impetus and encour-

agement for others to go out and “do their thing” for the Internationa! Year of the Child.

By 6 p.m. yesterday the national total had reached $2 million. The question then on everyone’s lips was would this year’s Telethon beat last year’s final record total of S3.IM as the total increased contributions poured into the collection centres throughout New Zealand as people responded to the challenge. But it was not to be, unofficially at least. By the time the fifth Telethon went off the air at 8 p.m, it had raised a creditable $2,767,351. In Christchurch more money was given than ever before. Pledges coming into the Civic Teletheatre by telephone totalled about $200,000 while cash and

cheques amounted to about $130,000: both well up on last year. Once $2.7M had been reached nationally the organisers could congratulate themselves on reaching at least one target: in the,, last five years

Telethons have raised a total of at least SIOM for charity. The latest Telethon is likely to be the last, not just because South Pacific Television will not exist next year (it will be ab-

sorbed into Television New Zealand under the new system), not just because this year’s effort raised less than last year’s, and not just because SIOM in five years is a nice neat sum to stop at.

Rather it is a combination of all of these factors plus the feeling that New Zealanders have probably had enough for now and that it is time for a break. Somehow this year’s

Telethon seemed less spontaneous than it should have been and too highly organised. Granted there were occasional hitches, much ati libbing by the frontmen and women, and plenty of spontaneous response

from the audience. But one got the impression that one had seen it all before once too often. Judging by the frequent links with other Telethon centres Christchurch people seemed to be hav-

ing the best party of all at the Civic, the local Telethon headquarters.

Even in the middle of the night and the wee small hours of Sunday the public seats in the teletheatre were full and there was always a good proportion of children in the audience. Television One staff combined with TV2’s to help out and plenty of volunteers from all parts of the community gave their time and energy to the cause, joining in the party atmosphere and having good time.

In ail 1600 people worked behind the scenes and on stage at the teletheatre: the frontman, Ken Ellis, and his assistants, the members of the panel, the various entertainers and the special guest, Vai Doonican, only spearheaded the huge effort.

Behind the scenes, in addition to the camera, lighting, sound and production crews, were hundreds of telephonists, security officers, computer programmers, bankers, caterers messengers, and other willing helpers. People pushed beds, cars, coffins, tractor tyres, ovens, wheelchairs, and a Howitzer round Canterbury to raise money and all converged on the teletheatre with their spoils. Hundreds of 24-hour sponsored events included every imaginable sort of “-athon”; dance-athons. disco-athons, dart-athons, yah t z e e-athons, stayaw ke-athons, pool-athons, trampoline-athons, raftathons, knit-athons, cardathons, game-athons, talkathons and hush-athons to name but a few.

—Felicity Price